Defective Puppets
by DragonSilhouette
Summary: The puppeteers choose the worst possible group of teenagers for their ritual sacrifice.


**Disclaimer: **Young Justice and Cabin in the Woods are not mine.

**Summary:** The puppeteers choose the worst possible group of teenagers for their ritual sacrifice.

**Author's Note:** It's been a while since I've watched Cabin in the Woods, and I'm mostly relying on the wiki for information, so.

My only regret is that Artemis isn't in this. She would've had some awesome lines, for sure.

* * *

**Defective Puppets**

* * *

"Damn those Swedes," Steve Hadley, a senior technician in the Facility, commented as Wendy Lin of the Chem Department finished her report about the ritual failure in Stockholm.

Gary Sitterson, also a senior technician, waved a hand unconcernedly. "It doesn't matter. There's still Kyoto, and the Japanese have never failed us before. And I'm sure that our Chem Department isn't foolish enough to botch this operation. _Again."_

Lin shrugged when the two men stared pointedly at her. "Don't look at me, that was way before my time."

.

"Let's see…" Wally rifled through his duffel bag. "Clothes, underwear, pajamas, food, food, food, I'm all set for the weekend!" He zipped up the bag triumphantly.

"You know Robin's the one bringing food," M'gann informed him, floating into the room. She was in her human disguise.

"I know." Wally hefted the bag on his shoulders and followed M'gann to the zeta beams, where Kaldur and Conner were waiting with their own bags. They all teleported to Happy Harbour, where Robin was waiting with an RV a block away.

"Hi, Robin! It's so nice of Batman to offer his cabin for the weekend," M'gann said. "Are you sure he won't mind?"

"We were awesome in our last mission." Robin grinned at them, fixing his sunglasses proudly. "He knows we totally deserve this. Now, the cabin is a few hours' drive from here. It's a bit out of the way, and there's no internet or reception, but it's surrounded by nature and there's a great lake there for swimming."

"Can't we take the bioship?" Conner asked.

"No," Robin said, and that was that. They all clambered into the vehicle. Kaldur was the only one in the team who had an actual license (long story), so he had the honour of driving them all through the city. Once they left civilization, he switched with Wally (who was practicing for his license), who then switched with Conner (who had the knowledge of how to drive implanted in him by Cadmus), and finally Robin (who had known how to drive since he was ten). Robin drove the last leg of the trip, stopping at a rundown gas station for gas and to confirm their route.

The old, dishevelled owner of the gas station was very rude. He gave them some vague warnings and managed to anger Conner enough that Kaldur decided to leave before the clone pounded the old man into oblivion.

.

They finally arrived at the cabin. The old man's rudeness had disappeared from their minds to be replaced by a weekend of excitement and team bonding.

There was a bit of a commotion about the one-way mirror in Conner's room (they dared not think about why Batman's cabin would have something like that), but a bit of blanket thrown over it fixed the problem. Robin commented on the large amount of cameras and bugs cleverly hidden around the cabin, but attributed it to Batman being paranoid as usual.

As discussed, they met up beside the lake in their swimsuits. Kaldur, for some reason, was wearing glasses. They spent a nice afternoon playing in the water. Their resident Atlantean had explored the freshwater lake and found it strangely devoid of life. Near sunset, they decided to head back to explore the cabin.

.

"The merman!" Hadley bellowed. "Put me down for the merman!"

Ronald the Intern obediently put him down for the merman. On the board, the various departments that make up the American branch of the Organization had already put down bets on which monster was going to be released by the teens. Among others, the Archives Department had bet on Sexy Witches, R&D on the Huron, Security on the Jack O'Lantern, Demolitions on Mutants, Wranglers on the Angry Molesting Tree, and Maintenance (and Ronald the Intern) on the Zombie Redneck Torture Family (which were different from normal Zombies, which the Chem Department had bet on).

.

The team ended up in the basement, a dark, dusty place where all manners of random objects were stored.

Wally picked up a diary of someone called Patience Buckner and jokingly started reading the Latin in the diary out loud. In the Facility, the Maintenance Department (and Ronald the Intern) held their breath. Unfortunately, before he could get more than five words in, Robin slapped it out of his hand and lectured him on the dangers of reading Latin out loud. The Maintenance Department (and Ronald the Intern) sighed disappointedly.

On the other side of the basement, Kaldur fiddled with a puzzle sphere thoughtfully while Conner examined a dusty chemical tank. M'gann rifled through an open chest and picked up an old music box. It was so pretty, she squealed and hurried over to Conner, wanting to show it to him. She was so distracted she didn't see the wooden plank sticking out slightly from under a pile of junk, tripping on it and bumping into Conner, who crashed into the table beside the chemical tank and accidentally knocked over a jar of tree sap. The tree sap spilled onto the rotting floorboards, soaking into the ground underneath.

In the Facility, the Wranglers cheered.

"Oops." Conner and M'gann stared at the thick liquid spilling out of the jar and onto the rotting floorboards, soaking into the ground underneath.

Kaldur, Robin, and Wally heard the commotion and also gathered around the jar. Conner picked up the jar with his fingertips, making a face at the sticky substance that clung to his fingers. "Ew."

"Should we clean it up?" Wally wondered.

Robin sneezed. "It's so dirty in here, it probably wouldn't make a difference. Let's just get out of here."

The rest of the team agreed and they went back to the living room.

In the basement, a sapling popped in between the floorboards and started growing rapidly.

.

The team gathered in the living room. Wally and M'gann had prepared a veritable buffet of snacks and heaped it precariously on the tiny coffee table. Kaldur, as their esteemed leader, sat on the only armchair, the other four sharing two couches between them.

"For our first team bonding activity, I propose we play a board game," Kaldur announced. He gestured at the duffel bag of board games Wally and Robin had brought.

"Clue," Robin said immediately.

"No," Wally shot back. "No. Noooooooo. Under _no_ circumstances is Robin to play Clue or any mystery game, like, ever."

"Spoilsport."

_"You ruined Clue for me—!"_

"We're not playing Clue," Kaldur intervened. He didn't want to listen the two go at it again. "What about Scrabble?"

"Do you seriously want to play _Scrabble_ with Mr. _I-Like-Butchering-the-English-Language_ here?"

"Hey!"

"Monopoly," M'gann suggested.

"NO—!"

"Wally—!"

_"YOU RUINED THAT FOR ME TOO—!"_

Conner was getting impatient. "Well, what board game has Robin _not_ ruined for you, then?"

Wally paused. It took him a pitifully long time to think of a suggestion. Kaldur rolled his eyes at Robin, who only shrugged innocently. Finally, the speedster came up with, "Apples to Apples."

Robin brightened. "Can we play Cards Against Humanity instead?"

"No," Kaldur said firmly, glancing at the innocent Conner and M'gann. He was like them once, so pure and full of naïve ideas about the surface world, then Wally, Roy, and Robin got their claws on him and forced him to play that _infernal game…_

"But—"

Kaldur silenced all opposition with a glare and pulled the bright red board game out of the bag.

.

"Why isn't it working?"

Lin was pumping as much mind-altering drugs into the cabin and the surrounding area as possible. The drugs were supposed to suppress rational thinking and increase libido, but so far none of the teens were showing much signs of dumbass behaviour or wanting to bone each other. They simply continued to play that stupid board game and laugh at each other's cards. By all rights, they should be having an orgy right now. _Why weren't they being affected?_

Well, for one thing, three of the five teens weren't even human, so their usual chemicals tailored for human victims wouldn't have worked well anyway. Of the two actual humans, one was a speedster with an incredible metabolism—meaning that most chemicals wore off far faster than the average human. Finally, the last human had been exposed to so much more potent chemicals from Gotham's resident psychos, anything less than villain-grade concoctions was child's play to shake off.

Of course, the puppeteers knew nothing about this, and assumed the Chem Department had goofed again.

"Damn the Chem Department," Sitterson muttered.

.

Meanwhile, the sapling had grown so much in such a short time, it was about to burst through the basement ceiling and into the living room, where the teens were blissfully laughing at each other.

.

"The ritual in Kyoto has failed," Lin reported. "We are now the only thing standing between humanity and the end of the world."

Hadley scowled. "Of all the days to fail. Damn the Japanese…"

.

Conner was about to put down a red card when he felt a slight rumble under the floor. Turning up his super hearing, he made out a creaking and crackling noise underneath them. He dropped his cards and stood. "Everyone, get out now!"

The team sprang up, not questioning him, but it was too late. The Angry Molesting Tree punched through the floor and grabbed M'gann's legs. She screamed and kicked at the branches, her human disguise falling away in favour of her green-skinned Martian form, but the Tree had a very firm grip and refused to let go. Conner solved that problem by ripping the branches apart, allowing M'gann to fly away and turn herself invisible.

Kaldur, Wally, and Robin were on the other side of the room. Wally bolted, weaving through the whipping branches using his super speed, heading straight for the kitchen where he saw an emergency axe hanging on the wall. Kaldur punched through a window and jumped out, intending to go to the lake, while Robin skipped and flipped his way through the chaos towards the basement.

_What's going on?_ M'gann's voice rang clear in their heads through the mind-link.

_Did Batman tell you about the Whomping Willow on his property?_ Wally asked Robin.

_No, but that would've been so cool,_ Robin replied. _Hey, what the hell—! I change my mind, this tree is seriously perverted!_

A furious roar from the living room. It seemed the Tree had grabbed Conner in an unfortunate location as well.

A wave of water crashed through the broken window and into the main trunk, momentarily stunning it. The Tree hadn't stopped growing since its rather angry debut, already smashing its way through the second floor while simultaneously sprouting more arms. Conner was sick of the perverted boughs filling the living room and jumped straight up, crashing through the second floor and took out his anger on the sentient tree, unfazed by the sharp twigs cutting through his clothes. M'gann telepathically controlled multiple sharp instruments laying around the cabin—knives, shovels, scissors—and started hacking away at the Tree while following Conner.

A flash of red, and more branches fell from the main trunk. Wally.

_I placed a bomb on the Tree's roots. It's set to blow in one minute,_ Robin announced.

_Where are you?_ Kaldur asked.

_Basement. On my way out. _

_Wally, meet up with Robin and get him out._

_Yes sir, leader man!_

_M'gann and I are outside_, Conner said.

_Good, rendezvous at the lake,_ Kaldur ordered.

_Robin and I are in the clear, we'll meet you there, _Wally confirmed.

The team cleared out of the area. The tip of a tree branch broke through the roof, just as Robin's bomb ticked to zero and blew up the cabin and the Angry Molesting Tree in a fiery explosion.

.

Complete silence in the control room.

"What the hell was that," Hadley said flatly.

.

Near the lake, the group of five met up with Kaldur. Conner wanted to get out of there, but Kaldur and Robin insisted on finding out what just happened and if it posed a danger to people.

"We're in the middle of nowhere!" Conner said, frustrated. "There is no one to endanger!"

"We just got attacked by the Whomping Willow," Wally said. "I think that's reason enough to investigate this area."

"But—" Conner paused. He tilted his head.

"What? What do you hear?" Robin said urgently.

"… People. I hear people." Conner ran to a gravesite near the (now exploded) cabin, the team following, and crouched in front of one of the tombstones. It never occurred to them to question the odd placement of this graveyard. "I hear something rumbling under here."

The team gathered around while M'gann telepathically dug a hole with a shovel. Eventually, they came upon a hidden elevator… and a family of redneck zombies inside the elevator. The team drew back while Conner grabbed the two of the zombies and threw them at the lake. M'gann threw two more in the same direction, while Kaldur and Wally literally disarmed the last two. They had no compunctions about getting violent with zombies—they were the undead, and Zatara made it clear during his lecture on supernatural creatures that zombies were not considered living or human and should be disposed of immediately.

Elevator now free of the undead, the team unanimously decided to enter the thing while Robin hacked the elevator and sent them on their way to god knows where. The elevator brought them to an underground collection of cubes housing all sorts of monsters from the American movie industry: zombies, vampires, giant snakes, alien beasts, clowns, and… something that looked a lot like Pinhead from Hellraiser, but with saw blades in his head instead of nails. The monsters seriously creeped out M'gann, but the horror movie marathon they had last week had fortunately prepared them for this, and the team was otherwise unaffected.

Seeing a ghostly wraith unable to get out of the cube, Wally knocked on the glass walls of their own cube. "What is this thing made of?"

The elevator stopped. The team tensed, ready for whatever was on the other side. The door slid open… and revealed a host of armed personnel, their weapons trained at the teens. The team didn't hesitate to kick their asses. They fought their way through the hallways, disarming and knocking out security guards and the odd scientist or two. Eventually, they entered a particular hallway and came upon what looked like an ancient temple platform with carvings of humanoid figures on the walls. The platform opened to an endless abyss on all sides of the circular room.

Conner peered over the pit. "There's something down there… I can hear them speaking."

M'gann sensed the minds in the pit and tried to connect with them, but the minds were strangely slippery, and from what she could tell, incredibly alien to her.

"In movies, this would be the place where they do all the human sacrifices," Robin noted.

_Clap. __Clap. Clap._

.

In the control room, Sitterson started connecting the dots together.

The boy with the Superman shirt. He had passed him off as a Superman fanboy, but the super strength, the incredible jumps, his indestructibility—all of it pointed to the fact that he was perhaps a meta with powers similar to Superman. Or worse, someone actually related to Superman, another Kryptonian…

And the girl, the one who he now realized was controlling those floating objects, who had flown away from the tree, who had morphed into a girl with green skin and disappeared from the cameras… Like the Martian Manhunter…

And the dark-skinned boy who spent an unnatural amount of time exploring the lake, and had actually demonstrated _hydrokinesis_. Looking closely, he realized that the boy had gills on his neck and webs between his fingers. An Atlantean, probably a subject of Aquaman, the King of Atlantis…

The redhead, who had shown himself to be a meta, who did not show any signs that the chemicals affected him at all, who moved faster than the eye could see… So fast, like the Flash…

And finally, that youngest boy who had noticed all the cameras, all the bugs in the cabin, who had hacked his way into this goddamn Facility, who had shown incredible feats of acrobatics… feats of acrobatics that only Robin of Gotham would be able to pull off…

Oh fuck.

"Sir!" Lin yelled, frantically pushing buttons, trying to contact their superiors.

"We're fucked," he said numbly.

"What?"

"We're fucking fucked!" he yelled. He rounded on her. "Don't you see? These children… are not children at all… Oh god, we fucking kidnapped the kids of the fucking Justice League…"

"Justice… League…" Her eyes widened in realization, all the puzzle pieces falling into place. "Fuck."

"Exactly."

"What do we do?"

"... Call the Director."

"Um…"

"Call the fucking Director!"

"The lines are down!" she squeaked. "And she went down to meet them in the temple.'

His shoulders slumped. He reached for the tequila. "Fuck it."

Daniel Truman, head of security for the control room, shook his head.

.

The team turned around to face the woman blocking the entrance—and exit—of the temple.

"That is completely correct," she stated. "I commend you for defeating the Tree. You are all truly exceptional children. However, we cannot have you survive. The fate of the world depends on it."

Kaldur signalled his team to get into a fighting formation. "Who are you?"

"I am the Director of this Facility," she said haughtily. "Beneath this floor is a pit of ancient gods intent on destroying the world, and the only thing that appeases them is the annual ritual sacrifice of young people. The rituals vary depending on region, but in this facility, we draw from modern American lore to choose our sacrifices. We require five young people that conform to certain archetypes to be sacrificed to a monster of their own choosing."

"Archetypes?" Conner frowned.

"Yes. Sometimes, the sacrifices do not perfectly fit into the archetypes, so we use mind-altering drugs to _make _them fit. Of course, the drugs did not seem to affect you much, since they were made for human use and not… whatever you are."

"I'm human," Robin grumbled. "Your drugs are just weak."

The Director ignored him. "First, we have the Whore." She looked at M'gann, who looked unsure. "You are corrupted; thus you should've died first."

"You're kidding," Wally said incredulously. M'gann was the most innocent of them all.

"The Warrior." She nodded at Conner, who looked pissed at the Director for calling M'gann a whore.

"The Scholar." Kaldur took off his glasses and stared at it strangely. The team, including Kaldur, had completely forgotten he had been wearing it for some reason.

"The Fool."

"Hey!" Wally scowled. "I am a scientific genius—"

"And finally," she looked at Robin, "the Virgin."

"Virgin!" Robin was outraged.

"Virgin," Wally laughed. Robin elbowed him. Hard.

"The Virgin must be the last one standing," she continued, ignoring the immature brats. "He lives or dies as fate decrees—it matters not, as long as he suffers."

"Suffer. Right." He suffered more while training with Batman. "So basically, you're ritually sacrificing humans to appease these giant evil gods so they don't destroy the world."

The Director nodded. "Exactly. All the other Facilities in the world have already failed their rituals, and the penalty of not completing at least one ritual is the complete and total destruction of the human race by the Ancient Ones. Now, if you would please just be good little sacrifices and kill yourselves for the sake of humanity…"

The team had a short mental conversation before turning to the woman. "I think we have enough information to report to the Justice League," Kaldur said.

The Director was outraged. "The fate of humanity hangs in the balance—!"

"The League will take care of it," Robin said dismissively. "Anyways, we gotta go."

M'gann telepathically moved the Director away from the exit, and they went on their way.

"Damn these brats," the Director cursed.

.

After escaping from the Facility, the team immediately went to Black Canary and told her what happened.

Needless to say, she was unamused.

"Ritual sacrifice, my ass," she grumbled, contacting Batman and Zatara. "Ancient gods, end of the world—this falls under League jurisdiction and they _know_ it."

Half an hour later, Superman was leading a group of heroes to the pit under the temple. The next day, the earth was still standing. No ancient gods rising from the ground and bringing about the end of the world.

Just another day for the Justice League.

.

.

.

.

.

"Now that I think about it, Batman doesn't own a cabin in Rhode Island," Robin said.


End file.
